


Bullfinch's Mythology

by copperbadge



Series: Stealing Harryverse [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Found Family, Gen, Metamorphosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-15
Updated: 2004-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape discovers he's been hauled kicking and screaming into having friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bullfinch's Mythology

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to the alternate-universe fanfic Stealing Harry and will make very little sense without that context.

Severus Snape would never admit in a thousand years that he enjoyed visiting the Tonkses. 

Perhaps he didn't even believe it himself at times; it was always difficult to convince himself to go, and he usually tarried until the last possible minute. It was uncharacteristic of him, really. He'd always been the sort, even as a child, to rip the sticking-plaster off his cuts all at once or jump into freezing water without hesitation. 

Even with his reluctance, however, he was always prompt; so much so that on the first few occasions he surprised Andromeda, who was used to the disorganisation of the Tonks side of the family and, as a child, the imperious Black assertion that whenever they arrived was the proper time. Being on time was something that did not happen to Andromeda, except by accident.

Of course, she joked, he was probably making up for the first few times she'd invited him to dinner and he hadn't arrived at all. Severus, after pointing out to her that he had declined her invitations in writing and well ahead of time, gave up. It was little use arguing with Andromeda, even about such ridiculous things as dinner invitations. 

Andromeda's tenacity was why he had begun visiting the Tonkses for dinner in the first place, after the mess with Peter Pettigrew and Harry's flight to Wales. He knew of the Tonkses better than he actually knew them; Ted and Andromeda had both been years ahead of him in school, and his friendship with Regulus had not extended to the rest of the family. Nymphadora had been one student among many. Even as little as he knew them, he was aware Andromeda and Ted must have discussed him; Andromeda as much as told him so, when she came to visit him in his quarters one day after he'd declined her fourth invitation. 

"I know we aren't friends," she'd said, accepting tea from him politely -- never let it be said he was a bad host -- "But you've been good to Harry and Sirius, and of course we know you helped Dora pull through her NEWTs."

"There is nothing owed on either account," he'd replied stiffly. "I am paid to ensure that students manage to retain something between their ears, and assisting Harry was -- "

He stopped, suddenly; he had almost been about to confess what a pleasure it was to spend time with the young, inquisitive child he knew more by the name Parvus than by his real name. 

Andromeda smiled and filled the silence smoothly. "Nevertheless, though I've always found terms like 'debt' to be distasteful, my husband and I find ourselves in that position. We also wonder if you aren't slightly at a loss, having had to give up Harry so quickly. It must be quite...isolated, here at Hogwarts."

He'd snorted derisively. Isolated wasn't the word for it; after the initial settling-in of the new school year, teaching became somewhat tedious, and he'd never got the hang of befriending the rest of the staff. Now, self-conscious about the peculiar scars that crossed his right temple and without the thought of a trip to Diagon Alley with Harry to look forward to, things did seem...emptier than they ever had before.

Lonely. That was the word for it. 

Not that he'd ever have admitted that, either. But he knew that, on some level, Andromeda saw it anyway. 

"I understand your schedule and responsibilities don't permit much free time away from the school, but we would like to have you to dinner. I'm sure you'd be interested in Dora's progress in the Aurors' Academy, and you've yet to properly meet Neville," Andromeda continued. "I'm afraid our hospitality may leave something to be desired, as we're in the middle of knocking down walls and laying carpet and the like, but there's always Sosi Alley -- or we could meet you in Hogsmeade!" she said brightly. 

Her requests in writing he could easily reject; it was much harder to do so in person, and he'd found his much-prided sarcasm had left him. 

"Hogsmeade, perhaps," he allowed. 

"Oh, excellent. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself, Severus. Shall we say Friday at eight?"

"I'm not -- "

"I'll make sure Dora's free, and we can take Neville up for the afternoon, then meet you for dinner," she'd said brightly. "What a splendid idea, Severus. I'm sure visiting Hogsmeade will be good for him. You do have a way with children, don't you? Then again, I'd expect nothing less of a Hogwarts professor."

And that, it had appeared, was that.

He'd loathed the idea of dinner, in public, with near-total strangers except for Nymphadora, who'd been his student -- and not a particularly stellar one, or one he had been very lenient with. And a nine-year-old child along too, no doubt a troublesome, noisy brat. He didn't often make conversation and didn't particularly care to try. He disliked arranging to meet people, as he found they were rarely on time; he had no inclination to be nice to Ted and Andromeda Tonks. Andromeda had a habit of guessing what he was thinking and feeling that had nothing to do with Legilimency and everything to do with watching him more closely than he liked. 

And yet...the long walk to Hogsmeade in the late-summer evening had been soothing, and he found the restaurant Andromeda had directed him to nearly empty. Nymphadora was quiet and respectful, even if she did knock over the gravy boat and tread on his toes, and the Longbottom child was as well-behaved as one could expect from a nine year old. He was a roundish, harmless-looking boy, though he seemed drawn and pale, and his dark eyes watched Ted almost continually. 

Somehow, though Severus never really discovered their methods, Ted and Andromeda kept the conversation light and continuous. Now they asked questions about his classes, now they spoke to Nymphadora about her training, now Andromeda urged Neville to tell, in slightly halting, shy sentences, about their visit to Honeydukes that afternoon. When he knew the Tonkses better, Severus studied how they did it, but he simply didn't have the knack. He was grateful that they did. Otherwise the meals they took together might well have been intolerable. 

The third week of classes, Ted sent him an invitation to dine with him and Neville at their new home; Andromeda was in Ireland looking at textiles for the shop, and Nymphadora was doing a weekend training intensive. He didn't bother to decline this time, mostly out of a vague fear that Ted might take it into his head to visit Hogwarts also, in order to convince him face-to-face. 

There was a Hallowe'en party in the gutted ground floor of Grimmauld Place that October, made all the more eerie by the sheets hanging from the walls and the occasional bit of bared lumber. In November a Muggle festival at a brewery, where Severus found himself fascinated by the pure chemical nature of the brewing process and came away with several books on the subject. In December there were dinners and rambles through Hogsmeade, with the ground covered in frost and snow. Sometimes the entire family appeared, sometimes just Ted, or Andromeda and some of her friends. He liked it less when she or Ted brought people along; he withdrew to the edge of the group and kept mostly silent, unsure how to interact with people who were neither student, nor colleague, nor (and this was the third classification he was only beginning to build) a Tonks. 

He was not entirely as isolated as the Tonkses might have believed; he had contacts throughout Europe and America, other potions specialists or subscribers to journals he read or was published in. Some were friendly enough that they sent Christmas cards, and he set them on his mantel. He didn't expect much more than that; Dumbledore always gave his faculty some small gift or other, and usually Professor McGonagall sent him fruit or a small basket of sweets, but he neither expected nor wanted anything else.

Certainly he did not expect, on that first Christmas since Harry's exile to Betwys Beddau, that he would be woken by a childish voice shouting, "Happy Christmas, Professor Snape!"

For a split second he thought it must be Harry, but it was slightly off, a little too high and with the wrong accent. He pushed himself out of the bed and pulled his robes on over his pyjamas, peering into his sitting-room. Standing on his hearthstone was Neville Longbottom, carrying a large parcel. He'd sent small gifts to the Tonkses, of course, it was only polite, but he hadn't expected they'd send him a Longbottom in return.

"Shove over, Neville!" someone said, and Neville was poked in the back until he complied. Onto the hearth came Nymphadora Tonks and her parents, stumbling out of the floo hookup that he'd thought (curse Dumbledore, they must have put him up to this) was secure. 

"What on earth...?" he asked bewilderedly, as the Tonks family en masse beamed merrily at him.

"Christmas!" Neville said, and offered him the parcel. 

"We thought we'd surprise you," Ted added, as Severus accepted the parcel, still at a loss, and turned it over in his hands. "Go on then, open it up."

"Not there," Andromeda ordered, unwrapping an enormous red muffler from around her neck while the rest of her family began shedding coats and gloves they'd clearly worn for the cold walk to the Leaky Cauldron -- the nearest floo point -- from Grimmauld Place. "Put it on the table first."

"We fetched it from Diagon Alley this morning," Neville said. Severus decided that, while he'd definitely improved over the months, this was the most talkative the boy had ever been. "Before the sun rose, even!"

"Is it up now?" Severus asked, slightly acidly. 

"Sorry, but we wanted it to be fresh," Andromeda said. With an odd excitement he wasn't sure was quite proper in a fully-grown adult, let alone a Hogwarts professor, Severus picked the knots on the ribbon that bound the parcel, and then pulled back rustling red and green paper. 

Now he understood why he'd been instructed to place it on the long worktable; out sprang five place settings and an elegant white tablecloth. The smell of sausage and bacon, eggs, buttered toast and fresh fruit, coffee and tea washed over him. 

"We brought you breakfast," Ted said with a grin, as the platters of food expanded from their charmed place inside the parcel. Serving forks and spoons began to fill the plates. 

Severus felt rather like Scrooge in the old Muggle faerie tale when he finally got the giant roast turkey at the end. Except he wasn't having with any heel-clicking nonsense. 

Still, he decided he could allow himself a genuine smile as he turned towards their expectant faces.

"Well," he said, "sit down then."

It was somewhere during breakfast that Severus -- who had long ago decided family, especially his family, was more trouble than it was worth -- realised he had acquired another one. He rather felt this family was an improvement on the other, even if Andromeda scolded him for not finishing his egg and Neville, in what was quite a daring feat for the boy, stole his toast. 

It wasn't as if the egg or toast were really that important anyway, compared to being brought breakfast by four smiling faces on Christmas morning. 

***

In the weeks following Christmas, he never even considered turning down an invitation from the Tonkses unless his school duties absolutely prevented him from joining them. He could quite happily sit on one of the Hogwarts porticos with a book while Nymphadora studied nearby and the rest of the family indulged in snowball fights; he listened, with more interest than he showed, when they plotted a spring planting party for the first fine weekend, since Grimmauld Place had a fair-sized garden that had gone to ruin in the years it stood empty. 

The first week in February found Severus in Diagon Alley, picking up potions supplies for his NEWTs class and a few odds and ends for some of the other professors. He was supposed to have dinner with the Tonkses, which would be a welcome respite from wandering around Diagon Alley in the bitter chill. He felt himself begin to warm up almost as soon as he entered the old house on Grimmauld Place through the portkey-doorway near the top of the alley. By the time he'd passed through the shop, ignored by the attendants who knew him by sight, he was shedding his muffler and overcoat, bundling them over one arm as he tucked his packages under the other. The upstairs door was open, and he knocked on the door frame as he entered.

"Professor Snape!" Dora called, from the kitchen. "Is that you?"

"Nymphadora," he answered, hanging his coat on the hook and settling his things on the table in the foyer. "I was unaware I was early -- "

"You're not," she replied, appearing in the kitchen doorway. "Mum ran out for some wine and Dad went to get some fresh potatoes for the mash -- apparently what we had wasn't up to standard -- and Neville's having a sleepover with Madam Malkin's little boy. Have you met Russel?"

"I haven't had the...pleasure," he said drily. 

"He's a sweet kid. Not very bright, but friendly enough. I was just watching the roast," she added, stepping back into the kitchen and stumbling a little on the hem of her robe. "You can come in here if you like, or wait in the living room."

He followed her into the kitchen, where she took up her seat at the little breakfast table near the window and rearranged a few books laid out on it.

"Academy classes," she said, looking sardonically at the spread before her. "I have a preliminary exam next week. Defensive Magical History."

"Not your favourite subject, I take it," he said, for want of something else to talk about. She glanced up at him, as if confused for a moment, then shrugged.

"It's all right. I'm learning things. I'm just not sure how they're going to help me as an Auror. Some of the reading is great, though."

He picked up one of the books, examining the spine. "Bullfinch's Mythology again? Muggle books?"

"They're not actually Muggle, really," she protested. "Well, they publish them in Muggle, but that's the assignment. We have to read the book and sort out what's Muggles making things up from real events in Magical History. You'd be surprised how normal Muggles used to think this kind of thing was."

She held up a book entitled Bullfinch: A Magical Concordance. "It's all explained in here. Bullfinch got most of his myths from Ovid's Metamorphosis, which was written by an Animagus back in ancient Rome. It's all about transformation," she said with a wide grin. "I mean do you realise that almost all of the stories we have of ancient Greece and Rome, mythological or otherwise, are concerned with...well, people turning into other things? It's all down to change."

Severus studied her for a moment before replying. "You must feel very at home with these stories."

"Well -- " she paused. "Yes, I -- I suppose I do. But I think anyone would, I mean...who doesn't have change in their lives?"

He considered it in silence while she rose to check on the roast in the oven -- Ted enjoyed old-fashioned Muggle cookery as a hobby -- and sat down, cleaning up the mess of papers and books a little before proceeding. 

Change didn't come easily to Severus Snape. Change meant upset, which in his young world had meant punishments and people shouting; to change one's mind in Slytherin was to back down, to show weakness, and to become a target. 

You could forget about it in the Death Eaters. Regulus -- who was a friend, despite his older brother's moronic posturing -- had been murdered in front of his eyes for wanting to escape. And then, after all the upset and turmoil, he'd been taken in by Hogwarts, where some things hadn't changed in a thousand years. Where a man could pass a decade of his life -- nearing a decade -- in quiet, comforting routine. 

The slam of a door brought him back to himself as Ted arrived home with the potatoes, his wife just behind him with a bottle of wine and a basket of fresh rolls from the bakery down the street. 

"Good evening, one and all," Ted said mock-gravely as he shook Severus' hand in greeting and set the potatoes in the sink, peeling and scrubbing them with a flick of his wand. They leapt to the cutting board and a knife began to dice them as Andromeda set the basket on the table, and Severus grudgingly allowed her a greeting kiss on his cheek. Dora carefully lifted a handful of plates and walked very slowly into the dining room with them.

"Just about finished, I'd say," Ted announced, removing the roast from the oven. "The thing about Muggle cooking, which I always say," he added, addressing himself to Severus, "Is that the fullness of time is almost an ingredient. I could cook the roast in about two minutes with magic, but you wouldn't have the lovely smell of it all afternoon, and the anticipation and such."

"On the other hand, after a twelve-hour day downstairs in the shop, I'm just as grateful that I don't have to wait half an hour for my spaghetti," Andromeda replied. "You're NOT going to Muggle the potatoes, are you, sweetheart?"

"No, the roast is too close to done," Ted said, piling the heap of cold, uncooked potatoes on a plate. 

Oh, Severus, would you...?" Andromeda gestured at the bottle of wine, and he accepted it from her hand, casting a quick accio on the cork to remove it while Ted hexed the potatoes into a steaming mash and carefully whisked some gravy from the roast on the stovetop. 

"The plates are out," Nymphadora called as she ducked back into the kitchen for some silverware. Severus collected the wineglasses in one hand and brought the wine to the table in the other, pouring while Dora laid out the silverware. He gave her a questioning look, bottle hovering over the lip of her wineglass, and she nodded, holding up thumb and forefinger to indicate just a little. He set the wine down and quickly pulled her back from the doorway before she could run into Ted, who was carrying the roast out. Andromeda followed with the rest of the food, bread and potatoes, gravy, the vegetables that had been cooking with the roast, and a pitcher of water, some of them floating around her head until she plucked them out of the air and set them down. 

"Did you know," Ted said, as he began to serve out slices of the roast, "Dora's been taking a course in Muggle socialisation at the academy, Severus?"

"She was telling me about some magical history..."

"Well, that too -- a regular scholar, is our Dora, and you should see her hexes. She's got them honed," Ted said proudly.

"She was telling us about how some Muggles pray before meals," Andromeda said. "We had Ted demonstrate."

"Helpful having a Muggle-born for a dad, once in a while," Ted said with a wink at Dora. "They're training her to do special undercover work, of course, so she has to learn how to blend in with Muggles, just in case."

"How are things up at the school, Severus?" Andromeda inquired. "All going well, I hope?"

"The snow keeps them from running away too fast," Severus muttered, and Ted snickered.

He was quiet throughout the rest of the dinner while Ted and Andromeda talked about politics, both local to the shopkeepers of Diagon Alley and on the grander scale of the Ministry. Dora's comments about change sat uneasily with him; perhaps it was unnatural not to want change. The vast majority of magic was, after all, about turning things into other things. Minerva McGonagall, who could speak for hours on the subtleties of transfigurative categorisation, would have his head for thinking so simply, but in the end it was true. And he had stood still for a long time. 

Eventually he realised he ought to be going, and prepared himself again for the icy wind and cold drizzle outside. Andromeda adjusted his muffler for him, and Ted provided a waterproofing charm for the packages of leftovers they loaded him with, promising to owl him in a few days about having dinner in Hogsmeade. 

He was halfway through the shop, where they were closing up for the evening, when he heard Dora call "Professor Snape!" and turned in time to catch her as she tripped. She straightened herself, dusted down her robes, and held out a black, broad-brimmed hat. 

"To keep the rain away," she said breathlessly. "Mum sent it down."

He accepted the hat gravely. "Tell her thank you."

He was turning away when she called his name again, and he sighed. "What is it?"

"I -- listen, I didn't mean to upset you," she said. It was unusually perceptive of her, and he examined her face as she spoke. "I was just talking about school stuff. I'm always saying the wrong thing, I know, but...I'm writing a whole paper on the important part, and you didn't even hear it."

"And I suppose you'd like me to approve your thesis?" he asked sarcastically.

"Everyone in the stories changes but no one changes alone," she blurted. He stared at her. "It's all because they're in love, or because they're being comforted about love, or because they've been good people or bad people, but they're never alone. Well, except Narcissus," she said, because even though she wasn't a terribly brilliant scholar, he would admit she'd always been a thorough one. "But his was sort of the point of being alone, and I just thought you ought to know."

He looked at her, considered, and decided he could allow himself a small smile.

"Thank you for the hat," he said. "It seems to be a sound thesis."

She beamed at him as he turned and left the shop, donning the hat against the drizzle, and making his way towards the Leaky Cauldron and the floo portal that would take him back to Hogsmeade.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Bullfinch's Mythology](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11652177) by [xinasvoice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinasvoice/pseuds/xinasvoice)




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